royalty doesn't do funerals
by i'm so far away
Summary: the malfoy household is drinking sorrow tonight.  post-war


**funeral:** _n._

**1.** the event in which after your death people who used to love you or pretended they did gather to mourn you and be sad about you and feel loss;

**2. **goodbye, farewell (maybe you'll be missed, maybe not).

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><p>Bellatrix Lestrange doesn't have a funeral of any kind. The Malfoy family is in the living room, and the Queen is sitting on the couch and the King is near the portraits, watching them curiously – and they watch back. Every portrait, they narrow their eyes and sometimes cross their arms and they always watch back, because the King is to be watched, always.<p>

Their Prince is sitting beside the Queen. In a rare moment of fragility, he's resting his head against her shoulder as if he was a child even though he's almost an adult –

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><p><strong>adult:<strong> _n_.

**1. **individuals who are old enough **a)** to drink, **b) **to vote, **c) **to have sex, **d) **to buy proprieties, **e)** to engage on serious jobs, **f) **to call others "kids";

**2. **someone who's scarred enough to murder the child inside;

**warning: **not to be confused with _mature: adj_, which means your head has been demanded more age than chronologically accepted.

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><p>even though he's almost an adult – and his eyes are hardly open. The Prince can't hear any more of this. He just wants to shut his eyes and drift back into sleep. That's the reason why he's so close to the Queen, though: she's calm and comforting and she's not afraid anymore. It's been so long since she's last been unafraid that it makes him smile sleepily even though he can't really comprehend words.<p>

The King looks over his shoulder at least once a minute, pressing his thin lips and checking the safety of his family. The King might have been the weakest in all mankind, and he may have succumbed and corrupted his own son, but he knows the guilt will crash him on his sleep. This moment is when the guilt is kept out of the room and in there's only their very illogically functional sense of family.

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><p><strong>to corrupt: <strong>_v._

**1. **to insert disturbingly wicked morals;

**2. **to introduce the dark art, which can be: **a) **arrogance beyond measures and boundaries, **b) **manipulation, **c) **boldness (antonym: courage, synonym: daring cowardice), **d) **dark magic;

**3. **to neglect open love as it should be, because _you have to understand, he needs to be strong, our boy. He needs and he will be strong and he'll be the best_;

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><p>"There's something else," the Queen says, clearing her throat softly, squeezing the hand of the Prince and pulling him even closer, as if thinking that they can't possibly be close enough. The Prince barely notices it, gives his hand away to be held, and yawns against her shoulder. She smiles, and in a very quiet tone: "This will soon be over, and you'll be able to sleep, alright?"<p>

The Queen usually doesn't ask many alrights and okays; she's learned from her family that the best way to ask for something is to ensure it'll be done by an order but she's been so shaken by the recent events. The last couple of years have been a blur and it all hurts and hurts and hurts and now it's only starting to stop hurting and it'll be a while before it starts to heal and the scar will surely be there, but she has her Prince in her arms and her King in the room and they're all fine.

As healthy as they can be. The war is over, after all.

The King stops, and his eyes unglue from the paintings on the walls – all the judging looks still all over him, so calculating they're almost tangible – and turns to his family. The Malfoy King allows himself to smile a very little smile to the other two. He nods, saying: "Of course. What is it, Narcissa?"

(His voice is almost an echo of what it used to be. The authority has vanished somewhere among the fought battles and the times he lowered his head when he should've said no. It all matters little now that the Malfoy family is granted forgiveness from a very insistent Harry Potter for what the new students of Hogwarts will someday call The Lie of Narcissa, the heroic act of a Queen who loved her Prince too much. But still: the King's ego is hurt in so many ways and a King can't have a hurt ego.)

"Bella—" the voice dies in the Queen's throat.

The Prince is the first to react. It's like adrenaline is shot through his veins and even though he was just a moment ago a step from falling asleep, now his eyes are wide awake and he squeezes back his mother's hand.

It was his Aunt, but he did not love her.

Love is a weird and questionable thing in most Pure Blood families – theirs especially if anything – but the Prince has no good memories at all from his dead Aunt. All he remembers is nightmares who turned reality and the times when he was scared at night and couldn't even put a name on all the monsters haunting him and they whispered in his ears _You'll be great, Draco, you'll be one of us._ And the Prince said no and shook his head and covered his little blond head with a pillow and started to cry, and the voices insisted _you'll follow the Lord_.

The Prince has never particularly liked the idea. He did after being repeated a thousand times that he should like it because it was an honour – he was a Pure Blood after all, with capital letters and a big nice name – but when he was young and Aunt's ghost would whisper in his ear, he would not like it. And he would yell at her that he didn't want to follow anyone, and she would laugh out loud, madly.

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><p><strong>pure-blood:<strong> _adj._

**1****.** being doomed and blessed at the very same time.

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><p>"Narcissa?" the King asks in a reassuring tone, taking a step forward but not wanting to intrude the Queen and the Prince's moment of hand-squeezing.<p>

He's seen it, of course he's seen it. The King has noticed every single time the Prince has given his back on the King and ran straight to the Queen's arms. It bothers him and breaks him to pieces and makes him feel as small as one can be, and that's such a wrong feeling for a Pure Blood. Especially a King.

He knows he deserves it, though. The King knows guilt better than anyone; such thing could never be denied.

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><p><strong>guilt: <strong>_n._

**1. **that feeling that peels off your skin and doesn't care to not be invited in. it is fed on: **a) **self-hatred (_e.g_. i couldn't have let that happen, i'm an animal, i'm a monster, i'm the worst of all creatures and i'm so so so so doomed), **b) **a very long phase of denial (_e.g._ granted it'd be better if i had never joined them but then again how could i have not? they'd kill us all, they wouldn't even give us a chance. in a way, all i did was to protect my family. aren't we all safe?) that when ends starts the revolution of fear (_e.g._ they will never forgive me, they will never love me again – i know i wouldn't), **c)** denying the love you know that you don't deserve (_e.g._ see example above);

**2. **the very result of bringing the only ones you love into a bloody battlefield;

**3. **best friend of Kings.

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><p>The Queen takes a very deep breath and tries again, parting her aristocratic lips and meaning to get the name out, but she cannot. Her own sister's name, and she's speechless. – for she, differently from the Prince, did love Bellatrix Lestrange indeed, in spite of all madness and fascination for the Lord.<p>

She looked down at her own hand being squeezed back, realizing that she hadn't felt it, and she feels bad automatically. Just how could she not have felt her handsome Prince showing her comfort? She smiles, or tries to.

"I was wondering whether there'll be a funeral."

A long moment of silence follows.

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><p><strong>silence: <strong>_n._

**1) **i hope she isn't serious. that woman was crazy and she killed so many people and i just didn't kill anyone. i couldn't. because it takes so much of _wrongness_ to look in the eyes of someone and just kill, and i couldn't even when i really had to. but she could do it anytime. how could mum think she even deserves a funeral?;

**2) **i hope not. how would the order see this? perhaps they'll revoke their forgiveness. it was so hard for potter to convince them that our place isn't azkaban. _i can't have draco there. i can't have narcissa there. _i can't be there either.

**3) **i'm just so scared and i don't know what to do and my sister's dead and i know she's not worth crying over but why did she have to—just. i just… wish we were young again and maybe i could work a way of changing her and maybe i could've saved her but i didn't and now she's dead and i don't have her.

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><p>Usually these days, the Prince has been quieter than usual. Always trying to prove himself – it's only the wizard war that has ended, his internal war is still going on, and the demons inside are always raging and fighting and debating ways of punishing the Prince for his not being strong enough. And he tries tries tries and keeps trying but enough is never quite enough.<p>

Nonetheless, even though the Prince hasn't spoken a lot lately, it's he who breaks the silence: "If it'll do you any good, maybe it's the right thing to do."

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><p><strong>right: <strong>_adj._

**1) **the untaken choice.

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><p>There's only so much risking you can do in a day, but the King is feeling especially bold today. He raises his eyebrows and attempts eye-contact with his son. The Prince catches him doing it, and looks away so immediately that the feeling the King feels is pretty similar to what he imagines would be a whip hitting his face.<p>

He's not forgiven yet, but he will not rush.

Perhaps someday the King will find love in the Prince again.

What matters the most is that the Prince isn't at all loveless. If Potter has been so acclaimed for being saved by the love of his mother, who was a mud—_muggle_, then it surely is needed to be said that the love of the Prince's mother has saved the Prince as well, and in so many more ways than not being thrown in the prison.

It has saved his soul. It has saved his heart. – for he doesn't have many friends or people who care about him at all. In fact, was it not for the Queen, the Prince might have offered his entireness to the Dark Lord just to have a purpose.

The King's eyes go to the Queen, and her eyes don't go away when they meet his. She tries to go for a smile, still squeezing the Prince's hand so hard that it must be hurting, and she says: "What do you think, Lucius?"

"My opinion on that matter is unimportant," he gestures away, and shakes his head a little, still committed with elegance even in times of entire disgrace. "She was your sister. Your opinion is important—and, of course, Draco's." He turns to the Prince, even though he knows his eyes will be avoided. "What do you think, Draco?"

"What?" the Prince raises his eyebrows, at first in confusion. Then it's plain anger.

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><p><strong>anger: <strong>_vtr._

**1) **so now it's time to play family and ask everyone's opinions when it's so obvious that what _you _want is the most important no matter what you say because if people don't live up to your expectations¹ they end up being losers and not capable and failing and failing and failing and in the end you are the worst because you have no idea how that must feel like so yeah i have many thoughts which were all very _uninteresting _for you for so many years and now you want to know what i think. how appropriate, dad.

**2) **the crawling monster that finishes off your heart and climbs up your throat and gets to the mouth but then there are two variants **a) **the monster can find its way down your tongue and speak up and make you and the world around you explode, or **b) **the monster is fought back by senses of rejection and still fear and it stays in your mouth for it can not crawl back down, and it rots there until² it's out.

¹ _expectations_: truths created to make you become someone else, and repeated so perfectly that you indeed become someone else entirely than you first intended to be.

² _until_: when the time comes and you say it all and stops caring for auto-combustion. it's when you're ready, and it'll happen like it or not, sometime.

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><p>"I just want what Mum thinks is better to be done," the Prince says, turning his face back at the Queen, and hoping to Merlin this moment will end soon so he can go back to his room and just sleep and he hasn't cried at all because there are no tears anymore and he's so dry inside that he just wants to sleep.<p>

The Queen considers this, and stops squeezing the Prince's hand so hard. She looks up at her husband, the King, and the King looks back at her, all in expectation. She who'll later be studied and will have her name in one of the most important facts of history – as The Lie of Narcissa will take weeks to be thoroughly examined in latter studies – has one more decision to make, and she's so sick of decisions.

She sighs. "It's better not."

King and Prince secretly agree and wish they could nod and tell her it's the right choice, but none of they do. Both look at her, both are frowning, and they're so alike that it's almost like a mirror stands between them.

"I'd be doing this for me," she comments, and stops—

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><p><strong>selfish: <strong>_adj._

**1) **the quality of a Queen and a King and definitely a Prince as well;

**2) **a common synonym for: **a)** egotistic, **b) **egotistical, **c) **self-loving, **d)** self-serving, **e) **self-seeking, **f) **self-centered, **g) **inconsiderate, **h) **ungenerous, and:

**i) **narcissist, and also:

**j) **a Malfoy.

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><p>"Anyway," she breathes in and restarts. "I'd be doing this for myself. That's not what families do." She looks at the King, then at the Prince. Gives them time to look at each other but they don't. "I'll think of us, and what's best for us. Bel—<em>She<em> is dead and gone, and now we have to think of the image the Order will have of us."

The King is proud of her thinking. The Prince thinks: he raised her right—sarcastically. They're both content with her decision, though, and they nod without asking a question or insisting. The Queen is happy for their non-insistence, for it wouldn't be at all elegant of them to insist, that's clearly so mundane.

Also grotesque.

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><p><strong>family: <strong>_n._

[may vary.]

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><p><strong>change: <strong>_n._

**1) **i am not who i was from the start.


End file.
